Brandon Brooks and Dean Holt in The Scarecrow And His Servant. Photo by Dan Norman.
“Bigger!” the wonderful Doc Whiting used to shout at us in the olden days. “Make it bigger!” One step backward wasn’t enough; Doc wanted two step reactions. Leaps of wild horror. Pop-eyed grimaces. Takes to the audience. Always run. Most important: have fun.  If you do, so will the audience.
I suspect that Peter Brosius, director of the zippy The Scarecrow And His Servant (at Children’s Theatre Company, through April 6), may be the chairperson and leading light of the Doc Whiting School Of Over-The-Top Directing. Everything in Scarecrow bellows and hollers: the gaudy costumes. The looooooong Cyrano noses. The colorful sets (G.W. Mercier designed the sets as well as the costumes). The bold lighting (Michelle Habeck). Scarecrow wears its myriad influences on its sleeve: Nosferatu, The Wizard Of Oz, Don Quixote, Pinocchio, Mother Courage. But the show clips briskly along, much too fast for us to get testy.
Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, working with source material by novelist Philip Pullman, has penned a lovely story. The homeless (and ever-hungry) Jack leads the “Crowscare” (as the play calls him) on a search for “Spring Valley,” the crowscare’s home. Various adventures ensue. Okay, the story often makes no sense: a war? A desert island? But who cares. The play is sweet and affecting and the script is chockful of wonderfully clever Hatcherisms – though too often the production grabs us by the collar and shouts, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
The acting is very much á la CTC: loud, louche and lusty. I admire the heck out of Reed Sigmund, Autumn Ness, Gerald Drake, Traci Allen Shannon, and the rest of the CTC company, but I find that my esteem is always tempered with resentment: yes, they are clever, incredibly resourceful, amazingly creative – Sigmund and Drake especially – but they rarely if ever really speak to each other; they seem to be in their own impenetrable worlds. But you might disagree. After all, they are having great fun, and it is contagious.
Dean Holt plays the Scarecrow and provides a terrific counterpoint to the high-energy acting. He gives a multi-layered and understated performance, delighting in the harlequin Scarecrow world. Holt does the play on stilts, but he never draws attention to this – there’s no “Look at me!”ness to his work. He just lets the stilts impart energy and quiet passion. As the Scarecrow’s servant (and actually there’s a serous question as to who’s serving who), Brandon Brooks animates the play very nicely.
I’m rassling with the question of whether I should recommend that you spend the large dollars to see this play. After all, CTC is an expensive ticket. If you’re a subscriber, no problem, go, enjoy. If you’re not a subscriber, well, I’ll leave it up to you. The Scarecrow And His Servant isn’t theatrical perfection, but it’s by no means a horror.
Next up at CTC: Barry Kornhauser’s Balloonacy (in the Cargill space). And, of course, Shrek, The Musical. Perhaps you’re heard of the latter…
To end on a cheapskate note: the Institute Of Art parking ramp has gone from free to $4 to $6. Current Mpls parking restrictions make finding space on the street problematic. Give yourself plenty of time and be prepared to walk. Or pony up the 6 bucks.
For more information about John Olive please visit his (recently updated) website.